I was standing in the century old church with my Russian History class, listening to the prayers for the soul of the Departed servant of the lord, Fyodor. At the time, the melody was unfamiliar and dissonant, but it was beautiful and touched my soul. I remember the taste of the kolyva, the beauty of the icons that surrounded me, the discussions in the church amongst my classmates – the appropriate and the inappropriate.

Afterwards during the question and the answer period – someone asked about the Raising of Lazarus in Orthodox theology, as we’d just read Crime and Punishment. The priest (who is now my beloved priest and Spiritual Father) laughed and said, “Well, I promised your professor we wouldn’t get too religious, but…” and he began to explain the significance of the story – how it foreshadows Christ’s resurrection and the universal resurrection. And he talked about the realness of the story and the commemoration – how the icon shows people holding their noses from the smell; how Jesus wept. I remember how this answer resonated with me.

A few weeks later, I stood in that same century old church on what I thought was being referred to as Myrrhbury Sunday (was that somewhere in England, I wondered?) Later, I would find out it was Myrrhbearer’s Sunday. We will be at that same Sunday in just a few days – two weeks after Pascha (which I’d also attended with the parish that year, my first), and remembering the women who went to the tomb and proclaimed the resurrection. People who are familiar friends now, who have laughed and cried with me, who have gone through the pain of Holy Friday with me, and have joyfully shouted “Christ is Risen!” with me, I was meeting for the first time.

How far I have come in these past 12 years. Looking back at those days, and the paper I wrote about the figure of Sonya in Crime and Punishment, I see the beginning of my journey to Orthodoxy. I see that I thought I knew it all, but now I know how little I knew, and how much God was going to shake me down to my core and reshape me, like gold in the fire. And, how much more there is to shape.

Oh, and did you mishear anything in your first few Liturgies, or is it only me? And, how'd I do, Hilarius?